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Hills Like White Elephants Manipulation

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Familial roles play a large part in making a family work. If one person does not participate well, the entire relationship can shut down. Ernest Hemingway and O’Connor utilize dysfunctional family roles to indicate the hardships a family can go through during their specific time. Although O’Connor’s takes place in the twenties and Hemingway in the fifties, American disillusion is present in all time periods. The main characters are driven by their self-interests rather than the interests of others. “Hills Like White Elephants” demonstrates how in the situation of an unplanned pregnancy, the man takes on the selfish role of a bystander while the woman takes on a stronger more aggressive role in deciding how to approach the idea of an abortion. …show more content…

The grandmother in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” uses manipulation on her family which ultimately leads to their tragedy. She manipulated the entire trip and made it exactly how she wanted, but one mistake led to a car accident and a gruesome murder. In “Hills Like White Elephants” the man uses manipulation of disinterest to attempt to convince the woman to get an abortion. He repeatedly attempts to convince the woman that they can’t be happy unless she goes through with an abortion; this is not necessarily true. The conversation proceeds, “I’ll go with you and I’ll stay with you all the time. They just let the air in and then it’s all perfectly natural.” “Then what will we do afterward?” “We’ll be fine afterward. Just like we were before” “What makes you think so?” “That’s the only thing that bothers me. It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy” (121). The man’s constant thought of an abortion being the only solution towards being happy proves that the relationship is not as strong as they thought. He believes he can convince her by holding their relationship hostage, but the woman is smart enough to know that she will be much happier keeping the baby rather than dumping it. During the twenties, women did not have the option to express themselves or make decisions (history.com). So, this woman made a bold choice to make the decision. She fought through her husband’s manipulations and took on a new role in their relationship, a strong, independent

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